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Monday, August 01, 2011

Resolution (I Think)

I don't want to count my chickens here or anything, but I think I may have solved my mail delivery problem by outsmarting the post office. Also, I don't actually have any chickens, so can't do a lot of counting of them.

I have received actual mail, not junk mail, real mail addressed to me, at my home, for three of the last four days. Some of it came from people or organizations who recently had things they tried to mail me get sent back. I am cautiously optimistic that this will continue.

So how did I solve the problem? Because contacting the local post office on the internets did not work. Contacting the national post office online didn't work either. Phone calls to customer service, the local post office and the main Chicago branch were wholly ineffective. Complaining about the total lack of assistance when they sent me a survey about my recent USPS.com experience garnered no results whatsoever. I was about to contact the Problem Solvers when I decided to try one more time in a last ditch effort before bringing in the big guns. Because the thing is, the US Postal Service is a huge bureaucracy, right? My telling them, again and again and AGAIN AND AGAIN that I hadn't moved did absolutely nothing to get my mail started because you can tell people they're doing it wrong until you're blue in the face, but unless you figure out a way to get inside the system, nothing is going to change. Well, I figured out a way: I used their online change of address feature and I changed my address from my apartment to...my apartment. That's right, I changed my address from the one where I live to the exact same thing and lo and behold, a few days later I got a confirmation letter with a packet of "Welcome to the neighborhood" coupons from USPS, and shortly thereafter started opening my mailbox and finding actual mail inside it. I've beat them at their own game. Bravo, USPS, you are a worthy opponent, but I watch a lot of Star Trek and I am a master at using logic to defeat the illogical.

1 comment:

I once had a mail carrier when I lived in Downtown Dallas who, when I had a certified/registered letter addressed to me, refused to either a) go to the intercom (that he had to walk past to get into the building) and call me to have me sign for it, or b) have the office staff, who was authorized to sign for it, sign for it, even though he handed them their mail, so it wasn't like it was going out of his way or anything. Lazy mother fucker.

Had another carrier when I lived in another building who refused to deliver mail to the entire building because they'd installed electronic locks on the back door that he used, and he didn't want to walk to the front entrance & go down a short flight of steps. And he didn't bother telling any of the residents that he wasn't delivering our mail, and that we'd have to go to the post office to get it. I only found out because I was chatting w/ another resident in the elevator, and they happened to know.